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The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, as determined by regulatory body Ofcom.

An investigation by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness".

The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening declaration about its decisions.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Erode Trust'

The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the narrator's male guardian held a role in the Hamas-administered government was materially misleading.

"It meant that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he presented.

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This error had the risk to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was pulled from the online platform in last February after the boy's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it breached the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in its entirety. We will comply with the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are confirmed."